• According to this measure, any owner of a second home who would like to transform it into furnished tourist accommodation, will be forced to create conventional rental accommodation in compensation.

  • Virtually inapplicable, this measure will de facto lead to the withdrawal of thousands of accommodations that were no longer used for short-term tourist rentals.

  • Several local associations welcome the initiative, but the organization for the defense of owners of furnished tourist accommodation denounces the "brutality" of the measure.

Attention, sensitive debate.

The Basque Country Agglomeration Community has decided to tackle, head-on, the subject of short-term furnished tourist rentals, which have proliferated on the Basque coast in recent years, and contribute to the tension of the housing market in this region. .

The elected representatives of the agglomeration community must adopt during the council of this Saturday, March 5, a new regulation "setting the conditions for issuing authorizations for the change of use of residential premises for furnished short-term rentals and determining compensations.

The idea is to compel any owner of a second home who would like to transform it into furnished tourist accommodation, to create conventional rental accommodation of equivalent surface area in the same town, or even in the same district.

The measure would be applicable from June 1, for any new request or renewal of furnished tourist accommodation.

186% increase between 2016 and 2020

The objective pursued is clearly to put a stop to the development of furnished tourist accommodation in the 24 municipalities of the Basque coast, and to bring these accommodations back to the year-round rental market.

According to a study by Audap (Agence d'urbanisme d'Atlantique et Pyrénées) carried out in July 2021, there would be around 37,000 short-term rentals in South Aquitaine (Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques), i.e. an increase of 186% between 2016 and 2020. A large proportion of these rentals - around 16,000 - are concentrated on the coast, between Hendaye and Anglet via Biarritz and Bayonne.

Rents that pay off: their average price on the coast reaches 148 euros per night - against 128 euros in rural areas - and these accommodations generate their owner 8,755 euros in annual income for houses, and 4,915 euros for apartments.

It is sometimes more profitable than a classic rental, while allowing its owner to take advantage of it for part of the year to spend his holidays there.

Protect the rental stock all year round

The local associations fighting against soaring real estate prices on the Basque coast are obviously delighted with the measure envisaged by the agglomeration.

In a press release, Alda (association for the defense of people and working-class neighborhoods) estimates that this regulation will make it "very difficult or even impossible" to convert residences into short-term rentals, that it "definitively protects the rental stock at the year, and makes it possible to recover a large number of homes lost for the local population, without concreting more or artificializing new soils.

»

The UNPLV (National Union for the Promotion of Holiday Rentals), which brings together platforms such as Abritel, Airbnb, Le Bon Coin, is on the contrary headwind against “the brutality” of this measure “from which we have learned the existence only a month ago,” chokes the president of the Union, Dominique Debuire, who asks for “a delay to discuss it.

"There is a real housing problem for the Basques on the coast, with a scarcity of year-round rental accommodation, recognizes Dominique Debuire, but it is not by creating other problems on the ban on the use of his secondary residence, that we are going to provide solutions.

»

Beware of the "closed shutter syndrome" warns the UNPLV

“This project will not change anything for your main residence, which you are still authorized to rent for up to 120 days a year, continues the president of the UNPLV.

But for his second home, he will need a change of use authorization, which will be subject to an obligation of compensation, which is impossible to achieve in practice.

This project will therefore lead to the abolition of almost all furnished tourist rentals outside the main residence.

»

But according to Dominique Debuire, they will not join the traditional housing market.

“In most cases, these are small owners, who sometimes do not even own their main residence because they are regularly transferred, and who have bought a second home on the Basque coast with a view to their retirement.

We questioned them via our platforms, the vast majority announce that they will not sell their property, nor will they rent it out for the year.

We are therefore going to add to the disadvantages, the syndrome of closed shutters for a large part of the year.

For the UNPLV, “another avenue to explore would be to apply this compensation measure from the second secondary residence, not from the first.

»

Consequences on tourism?

The Alda association, which denounces “the UNPLV lobby”, retorts that they “generally own their main residence in addition to furnished tourist accommodation and are therefore, by definition, multi-owners.

"Those who own nothing, those who are tenants, those who in the thousands risked in the coming months and years to receive a leave for sale and to leave their repurchased accommodation to make it a permanent tourist accommodation, will be the big winners of the measure.

»

The agglomeration community of the Basque Country, which does not wish to speak before the vote on Saturday, should adopt the measure.

Only the mayor of Hendaye, where there are 980 furnished tourist accommodations, said he was "very worried" about the consequences for tourism and seasonal jobs.

Others anticipate a surge in the price of furnished tourist accommodation in the Basque hinterland.

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  • Aquitaine

  • Pays Basque

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  • Bayonne

  • Airbnb

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